Pseudoscience

The Sunday Independent ran a short piece on psychics the other week, in which I was quoted as referring to “unreliable forces” when I had actually said “unreliable sources.” My bad, I’m sure. The writer had interviewed me for this piece many months… Read More ›

An announcement from the Irish Skeptics Society, just circulated: Dear all, On Wednesday next, May 11th, we are very happy to welcome back Professor Brian Hughes, School of Psychology, NUIG, who will speak on the topic of his recently published radical and challenging book ‘Rethinking… Read More ›

Alright, there really is no humble way of putting this. My new book [*blush*], having been trailed as “imminent” for several months, is now officially available. In all good booksellers, as they say (and they actually do say this). I’ll be… Read More ›

Have you ever noticed how irrationalities (a) tend to cluster, (b) tend to offer hope to the desperate, and (c) tend to appeal to folks with strongly held dogmatic beliefs? No? Well here’s an interesting example of the genre: Get… Read More ›

A letter in today’s Irish Times bemoans a recent column on homeopathy. The column had drawn attention to a report by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council that was dismissive of homeopathic treatments. But according to our letter-writer The report… Read More ›

Like a good sharknado, Susan Greenfield is (a) ridiculous and (b) back for more. We all remember this defence of her claim that internet use causes autism, don’t we? I point to the increase in autism and I point to internet… Read More ›

Readers might remember that I got nice new frames for my spectacles lately. Of course, the same visit to the optometrist revealed me to have ‘dry eye’, a condition associated with being pregnant, suffering a stroke, and other things (such as having… Read More ›

Yesterday morning I watched an interesting breakfast TV show here in Accra, on Ghana’s GTV. Interesting for three reasons: (a) because it illustrated the passionately articulate and comfortably personable nature of many Ghanaians, with whom just about any quick chat… Read More ›

Greetings from Riyadh Airport. Saudi Arabia is, well, different. And, moving on… Here in Riyadh the government have been having to deal with mass panic over an outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), which has taken the lives of… Read More ›

So, how can it be that homeopathy sometimes seems to work? Well there are a few possible explanations: The universe is broken Placebo etc. They’re cutting the stuff with real penicillin Full marks to those of you who selected #3…. Read More ›

The search for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 is a vastly complex endeavour. But it’s an empirical endeavour — it requires valid and reliable measurement and scanning methods, and an ability to objectively verify and triangulate all incoming data in… Read More ›

Here’s a classic science communication fiasco. Many of us believe empiricism enables the resolution of uncertainty with data, and that more information is better than less. That’s why we do science. One of the moral imperatives that drive us is… Read More ›

I’m travelling to China in the morning, on some university work in Hong Kong and Shantou. It takes two days to travel between here and there, and I’ll be away for 8 days. So yes, I’ll be spending half my… Read More ›

I know that a picture is worth a thousand words. Sometimes words can be used to paint pictures. In return, therefore, sometimes word-based pictures can end up saying a thousand words. And here’s one of them: I mean seriously. Australia?… Read More ›

The week in six bits: 1. Self-tickling is impossible even if you think someone else is doing it. Allowing me to break new ground by posting a picture of a cat on the internet. 2. Evolution Doesn’t Look Like You Think… Read More ›

The week in six bits: 1. What would it feel like to touch a human brain? We’re always told it’s jelly-like and yet, when I held it in my undergrad gross anatomy class, it felt like a cold cooked chicken… Read More ›